African Asylum at a Crossroads: Activism, Expert Testimony, and Refugee Rights examines the emerging trend of requests for expert opinions in asylum hearings or refugee status determinations. This is the first book to explore the role of court-based expertise in relation to African asylum cases and the first to establish a rigorous analytical framework for interpreting the effects of this new reliance on expert testimony. Over the past two decades, courts in Western countries and beyond have begun demanding expert reports tailored to the experience of the individual claimant. As courts increasingly draw upon such testimony in their deliberations, expertise in matters of asylum and refugee status is emerging as an academic area with its own standards, protocols, and guidelines. This deeply thoughtful book explores these developments and their effects on both asylum seekers and the experts whose influence may determine their fate. Contributors: Iris Berger, Carol Bohmer, John Campbell, Katherine Luongo, E. Ann McDougall, Karen Musalo, Tricia Redeker Hepner, Amy Shuman, Joanna T. Tague, Meredith Terretta, and Charlotte Walker-Said.

Thinking, Childhood, and Time: Contemporary Perspectives on the Politics of Education is an interdisciplinary exploration of the notion of childhood and its place in a philosophical education. Contributors consider children's experiences of time, space, embodiment, and thinking. By acknowledging Hannah Arendt's notion that every child brings a new beginning into the world, they address the question of how educators can be more responsive to the Otherness that childhood offers, while assuming that most educational models follow either a chronological model of child development or view children as human beings that are lacking. This book explores childhood as a philosophical concept in children, adults, and even beyond human beings-Childhood as a (forgotten) dimension of the world. Contributors also argue that a pedagogy that does not aim for an "exodus of childhood," but rather responds to the arrival of a new human being responsibly (dialogically), fosters a deeper appreciation of the newness that children bring in order to sensitize us for our own Childhood as adults as well and allow us to welcome other forms of childhood in the world. As a whole, this book argues that the experience of natality, such as the beginning of life, is not chronologically determined, but rather can occur more than once in a human life and beyond. Scholars of philosophy, education, psychology, and childhood studies will find this book particularly useful.

This volume begins in the early centuries of the Common Era with the various groups of people who had settled in southern Africa.. Stone Age foragers, farmers with iron technology, and pastoralists all interacted to create a complex society before Europeans arrived. In the seventeenth century, Dutch settlers developed a colonial society based on the menial labor of indigenous inhabitants of the Cape and slaves imported from the East Indies and other parts of Africa.
British conquest in the early nineteenth century brought an end to slavery, as well as new forms of colonial domination, tension between the British and the original Dutch settlers, armed struggle between expanding European communities and Africans (including the highly militarized Zulu kingdom), and intensive missionary activity that transformed many African societies. The discovery of diamonds and gold in the late nineteenth century brought industrialization based on migrant labor, new clashes between British and Africaaners, the final conquest of African societies, and new European migrants. During the twentieth-century, despite further economic development, African communities were increasingly impoverished. New forms of racial domination lead to the implementation of apartheid in 1948 and heightened political organizing among both African and Africaaner nationalists. The intensification of resistance in the 1970s and '80s coupled with drastic changes in the international balance of power brought an end to the apartheid state in 1994 and an intensified struggle to overcome apartheid's economic and political legacy by building a new nonracial society.
The book emphasizes social and cultural history, focusing onpeople's interactions and identities according to race, class, gender, religion and ethnicity. It also addresses changes in literature (both oral and written), music, and the arts and draws on the extensive biographical and autobiographical literature to provide a personal focus for the discussion of major themes. While this emphasis reflects dominant trends in historical scholarship for the past two decades, it also includes recent material on environmental history and relationships between African Americans and South Africans. Where relevant, it highlights comparisons between South African and U.S. history.

South Africa in World History is the first survey of South African history to range from prehistory to the present, the first to fully integrate social history and women's history, and the first to emphasize connections between the United States and South Africa. Written by Iris Berger, a recognized authority on South Africa and a past president of the African Studies Association, this marvelous history ranges from the first Stone Age foragers and Iron Age farmers to the coming of the Dutch settlers and the introduction of slavery, the British conquest in the early nineteenth century, the discovery of gold and diamonds, the rise of Afrikaner Nationalism, the coming of apartheid, the Soweto Uprising, and the creation of a new society headed by Nelson Mandela. Drawing on colorful biographical and autobiographical literature to provide a personal focus, Berger also explores social and cultural history, examining issues of race, class, gender, religion, and ethnicity, and drawing on a rich tradition of literature (both oral and written), music, and the arts. The book also discusses the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the devastating HIV/Aids epidemic in the country, and continuing struggles against racism and sexism, thus connecting the South African past with urgent contemporary issues.

Iris Berger's essay focuses on east and southern Africa, tracing women's history from earliest times to the present. By exploring their place in social, economic, political and religious life, Berger highlights the changing societal position of women through shifts over time in ideas about gender and the connections between women's public and private spheres. The essay by E. Frances White examines the status and activities of women in west and central Africa, from the earliest periods through the rise of various kingdoms and states, to the establishment of colonies and independent nations. It looks at women's participation in trade, including slave trade, and agriculture; women's political roles in chiefship, other leadership positions and nationalist movements; and the current constraints under which women function.

..". enables us to deepen our understanding of the organization of working women." International Journal of African Historical Studies

..". an impressive piece of scholarship." American Journal of Sociology

Virtually ignored by labor historians are the black and white women in South African industries. Drawing on comparative labor history and feminist theory, this important study traces the history of women as industrial workers and trade unionists in South Africa during most of the twentieth century."

During a turbulent colonial and postcolonial century, African women struggled to control their own marital, sexual and economic lives and to gain a significant voice in local and national politics. This book introduces many remarkable women, who organized religious and political movements, fought in anti-colonial wars, ran away to escape arranged marriages, and during the 1990s began successful campaigns for gender parity in national legislatures. The book also explores the apparent paradox in the conflicting images of African women - as singularly oppressed and dominated by men, but also as strong, resourceful, and willing to challenge governments and local traditions to protect themselves and their families. Understanding the tension between women's power and their oppression, between their strength and their vulnerability, offers a new lens for understanding the relationship between the state and society in the twentieth century.